


in words (a history, a myth)

by moth_writes



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: (historically inaccurate and with magic), Carry On Through The Ages, Gen, M/M, Medieval, Minor Fiona Pitch/Ebb Petty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:28:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27337936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moth_writes/pseuds/moth_writes
Summary: This is a story, a myth, a tale so well known even the youngest of children can recite it.This is the story children dream will happen to them while their parents pray it doesn’t.It is loyalty and treachery, light and dark, the sun and the boy who crashed into it.It is love built in hardship and peace found in battle.It is, most of all, Simon and Baz.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22
Collections: Carry On Through The Ages





	in words (a history, a myth)

**Author's Note:**

> Done for [Carry On Through The Ages](https://carryonthroughtheages.tumblr.com/)

  
  


...

_ This is a story, a myth, a tale so well known even the youngest of children can recite it. _

_ This is the story children dream will happen to them while their parents pray it doesn’t. _

_ It is loyalty and treachery, light and dark, the sun and the boy who crashed into it. _

_ It is love built in hardship and peace found in battle. _

_ It is, most of all, Simon and Baz. _

...

What happens first is clear.

Simon’s story, though blurred around the edges, remains largely the same. Of course, there are those who claim the farm woman who raised him was a witch who stole him away (which is, in fact,  _ very  _ wrong), who say that he was abandoned as a boy because he killed his mother (also very incorrect), who claim Simon Snow had never existed at all, but in fact was an illusion the entire time. (Not only very wrong, but also very presumptuous. Perhaps it is you who exist only as an illusion, as Simon Snow was as flesh and blood as the rest.)

Simon Snow’s story starts like this: there is a man, and a woman, and a night under the stars. Then there is a baby, squealing and sparking, and a woman who lay bleeding.

There is rain, and sun, and pyre flames reaching high.

The man, left to sorrow, had not crumpled. No, he had hardened into a blade honed sharp, sorrow dissolved into resolve.

The boy had been left on a fountain in the center of the small market. He had lain there, quiet and dozing in the sun, for almost a full day before the goat herder arrived. She had taken one look at him, with rosy baby-fat cheeks and wisps of bronze hair curled gently, and declared immediately that he was hers, now, and she his.

No one protested. Extra mouths, especially so young, were not in high demand.

And so, for eleven years Simon Snow had lived and grown on her farm. He was a bright boy, perhaps too eager at times, but always ready and willing.

_ (Simon didn’t call Ebb his mother. She was more an aunt, a grandmother, a kind-stern figure who cried easily and loved freely.) _

Simon Snow was the sun.

And then the Mage came.

The Mage was a strict man, and often unpopular with the old blood.His reforms, though, had many of the poor and the farm folk loyal, and so the Mage had a sort of unofficial militia.

I will keep you in cattle and grain, he promised, fingers stained with war-letter ash. I will protect you from the savages that surround us, he said, fingers stained not with war-letter ash but the ink of alliance papers, if only you give me your sons.

And the sons went, and trained, and grew apart from their families. Even those few with literate parents, siblings, friends, received no letters.

And they had no way of knowing the messages brought to their families. Died in war, died of wounds, died fighting for king and crown. Died with honor.

They hadn’t of course. Their king was not a just one, but he was clever.

And so Simon went, happily, with no way of knowing what awaited him.

He, in this case, was lucky. Ebb, having entrusted her farm to her brother, made arrangements to stay at Watford Castle. As a goat herd, her specialty, she would have a small room off the side off the barn and would take meals with the students.

It was a great stroke of luck, that. The previous goatherd had passed mysteriously only a week before, and the Castle had just been starting to look when Ebb volunteered.

Luck, of course, and not any of what the silly rumors were saying. Ebb couldn’t do that to a person, and especially not one so similar.

_ (Well, Ebb couldn’t. She was always too soft, or so my aunt has told me.) _

Simon Snow was eleven when he was dubbed the chosen one. 

They had been searching for years for one, and Simon Snow was magic. He was made of it, had it buzzing at his fingertips and ruffling his hair.

Simon’s roommate was a prince.

This is inconsequential, as he was the prince of a fallen line, and therefore not a prince at all. But he had all that came with it, the grace and the beauty and the intelligence of a Watford noble.

_ (No, Fi, I am not exaggerating. Or getting off track. Bugger off and let me tell the story, yeah?) _

He was made of magic, too, though in a different way.

Simon’s magic was a gift, a shroud wrapped tight around him and sunk under his skin. His roommate-Baz-was made of magic in a more than literal way. 

It didn’t crackle off him, he wasn’t sparks and fire and stupid bravery incarnate. He was fanged and immune to illness, he was fast and strong and grace. Magic was in his blood, was his blood, was what sustained him. Magic and blood, that’s what Baz was.

And so years passed at Watford. Baz, despite the Mage’s best efforts, received three letters weekly-his father, his stepmother and siblings, and his aunt. Simon perfected sword fighting and did not-so-well in his other classes, though one of the researcher's daughters was his saving grace.

Penelope Bunce was another of magic, and hers was fierce and honed and strong. She was one of, if not the, smartest people in the castle-if not the kingdom-and was one of only three girls to attend duel schooling in the castle since the Mage had ascended.

Agatha Wellbelove, the daughter of a nobleman-who was quite a generous donor as well-was another fast friend of Simon’s. She was in the ladies program (which had a much higher focus of elegance and manners and the running of a home) and, by the time she graduated, a seven time horseback racing winner.

She and Simon had been almost been engaged once. It didn’t work out. (Between their parents, that is. Simon and Agatha had really no say in the matter until it was over. They remained friends for a very long time, though it never went further than that.)

And, of course, the minor fact that Baz Pitch was hopelessly in love with Simon Snow.

…

Watford was a place of tradition and progress both, once.    
  


Under Natasha Pitch, the kingdom flourished. Allies were made, public works were well funded, winters were mild and the literacy rates soared. More power than ever lay in the hands of the people, and they knew it. Knew their queen trusted them, trusted in them. Cared.

When her son was born, the people cheered. They hoped someday he’d be just like her, strong and kind and ruthless.

Then it came, and she died, and the people mourned. But there was a change, a shift, and suddenly the numbers that hated her rose, their voices louder and louder still in support of the Mage, newly elected as was his right.

A line had ended, and his replaced it, and the undercurrent of loving, fiery magic throughout the kingdom died.

The winters grew harsher, and the people did not notice. The crops yielded less, the dams crumpled, sons disappeared from beds and memories, and the people did not notice.

They had their sights set on something far larger.

And they called it the Humdrum.

…

Baz knew his mother’s death had been unnatural.

He had witnessed it, after all, and he bore the marks. On his magic, his mind, his skin.

He’d been fourteen when he’d realized who had to be behind it-who benefited most from her death-and he’d started planning soon after.

(Yes, Simon, planning. Not plotting-I only ever did that for you.)

And Baz had been fifteen when he realized he was in love.

Deeply.

Horribly.

Hopelessly.

And with his roommate, his nemesis, enemy and heir of enemies.

He’d resigned himself to it, as he’d resigned himself to being a vampire, to disappointing his family line, to dying before he reached twenty years.

And so Simon and Baz and all of Watford carried on, growing steadily unhappier as the Humdrum ravaged the lands.

_ (Ow! Okay, fine, Fi! Stop that.) _

Another note, and one, apparently, more important that the continuation of the story.

An accomplished botanist far surpassing her master, Fiona Pitch, sister of the late queen and princess of a fallen line, had taken to sneaking into Watford Castle grounds whenever she could to impart knowledge on her  _ dear  _ nephew.

During one of those visits, sometime when the boys were in their third year of schooling, she’d met Ebb Petty.

Met again, that is.

She’d remembered her. Ebb had been a year above her, along with her twin. They’d been friends.

More than friends, once. Fiona, in her particularly sappy moments, still recounts how she’d known they were meant to be together. She’ll tell you she felt it in their first kiss, when they were sixteen and seventeen and sitting on the edge of the grounds one fall evening.

And Ebb will laugh and tell her she’s full of it, but the emotion in her eyes always gives her away.

At that point they hadn’t seen each other face-to-face in years, not since Simon was selected and the goatherd had passed  _ mysteriously  _ just in time for Ebb to take the job.

They’d fallen in together, and before long were inseparable. They didn’t actually start courting until after everything, but once they had one was rarely seen without the other.

Now, to continue.

…

Simon’s eighth and final year of schooling arrived as explosively as any other. 

His roommate was missing, his mentor seemed to have gone mad, and the Humdrum’s attacks became more and more frequent.

Baz returned, shaken and weak and clutching a letter from his mother.

And Simon made a deal with him, finally swayed to his side. Not convinced that the Mage had done it, but vowing to help Baz in any way he could.

Then came winter, and with it revelations. Revelations like kisses in the snow and hands in hair in front of a hearth, like fire licking at fingertips and flickering in stomachs.

The details, to anyone else, get blurry here and it isn’t clear what happened when.

I know. 

I know that Simon found me in a tower with my mother’s letter clutched in my hands, crowded into a corner while the Mage attempted to contain a dark, swirling mass in a sigil circle.

I know Simon went off.

I know a blast of magic slammed the Mage against a wall, left him slumped and bleeding.

I remember hearing distant banging. I’d learn later Fiona and Ebb were trying their damned best to get through, though nothing seemed to work.

I remember watching the dark mass coalesce briefly into a mirror, a copy of Simon down to the last wayward curl. 

It’d surged forward, then, and melted into Simon. That’s the only way I can describe it-there were two, and then there wasn’t.

Simon screamed and my ears bled.

Simon screamed and the painting and tapestries collapsed to dust.

Simon screamed and wings sprouted from his back, red and leathery. A tail followed, long and thin and spade shaped at the end. 

And the mist was pulled from him, pulled with his magic, turning to dust and smaller than dust in front of us.

And there was silence. 

Simon collapsed, and the door banged, and the Mage didn’t move.

I held him. It was awkward with his wings, but I did, and cried into his shoulder. He clutched back twice as hard, and it was the only thing keeping me from falling apart.

Fiona tells me she made Ebb spell us asleep so she could take care of it. Of the Humdrum’s remains, of the Mage’s.

I don’t remember what happened after that.

…

I woke up in an infirmary bed with my head bandaged. 

Simon snored lightly in the bed next to me.

Penny sat slumped in a chair next to him.

I couldn’t see Ebb and Fiona, but I could hear them dimly through the bandages.

I fell back asleep then, and I don’t remember what happened.

…

The next few months passed in a blur. The Mage’s funeral, celebration of the hero Simon Snow, Defeater of the Humdrum, the Council taking over the throne until I turned twenty.

I rule Watford now, with the same steadily guiding hand as my mother. The crops have yielded far more than necessary, the dams and roads have been prepared, our alliances are strong. The winters have gotten milder and milder, and now there’s only snow once or twice a year.

I’m married to Simon now, too. It’s everything I dreamed off when I was fifteen and stupid and sixteen and desparate.

Ebb and Fiona have retired to the countryside, raising goats and studying plants. 

Simon, as King-Consort, is free to do as he pleases-and lately that’s been providing schooling and homes for children. The literacy rate has soared since his project started, and I can’t say I don’t like it.

I’ve avenged my mother and taken the throne for the Pitch line. I’m happily married to the love of my life. I’m in close contact with my aunt and her wife, who also serves as occasional advisors.

I believe this is where I say it. 

The story of Simon Snow has come to a close. 

And he lived happily ever after.

…

_ Baz sets his quill down with a sigh, leaning back to survey the stack of parchment in front of him. _

_ It had taken weeks, but he had it down. Not all of it, of course, but enough. _

_ He gathers it in his arms, sets it neatly to one side. He has other work, but it can wait until tomorrow. _

_ He leaves. He has more important things to do, Simon related things to do. _

_ Baz Pitch, King of Watford, lives in laughter and love and light, surrounded by leathery wings and happy in his husband’s embrace. _

...

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on [tumblr!](https://trenchcoat-moth.tumblr.com/) !
> 
> please leave a comment or kudos if you enjoyed!!


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